Ch. 7: The Gates of the North
Back to Arheled The days were crisper now, warm but with frost in their memory. Bell and Forest soon grew used to the bizarre rhythems of homeschooling: breakfast, then Mrs. Lake frantically trying to figure out what they were to study next before she had to go to work, then schoolwork all morning. They did it in most eccentric fashion, stopping for rests every five minutes, but when Hunter Light would show up on his lunch hour they usually had enough done to satisfy him. “Did you hear about Lara’s sister?” Bell said to Forest during one of these breaks. “Yup.”'' Ronnie told me before he told you, remember? '' “I think the dragons took her. Isn’t that awful? Brooke says Lara is worried sick.” There was a knock at the door. Bell looked out the window and nodded: it wasn’t Cornello or any known enemies, so Forest went down and opened the door. Lara stood on the porch. Sick was a pretty accurate description. She looked almost ill, pale and haggard, her eyes feverishly bright. “Oh good, it’s you.” she said. “I asked Ronnie and he didn’t know. You’ve heard about my missing sister, right? Have you Seen anything, in dreams or what?” “You should call Arheled.” said Forest. “And what do you think I’ve been doing?” Lara said bitterly. “I stood in the woods and shouted his name with my voice and my mind: Arheled, Arheled! And he never answers.” “I know where he lives.” said Forest. Lara fixed him with her burning eyes. “Where?! My God, where?!” “He lives between the two hills.” said Forest. “In a place called Indian Meadow.” “Can you take me there?” Forest considered. “Bell, can you tell Dad I’m up the mountain?” “Sure.” said Bell, looking a bit miffed. “I drove here.” said Lara as they walked to the bridge. “Where is it?” “We have to stop at the library,” Forest told her. “I need to see a map.” Voices rang and echoed hollow in Ralph’s ears. His head ached violently and he didn’t dare to move it. Yet despite the pain his mind was remarkably clear, and he expected at first that he would wake up in a jail cell, or in some top-secret government lair for interrogating persons of interest. He remembered the bizarre interview with those two cops—if they had been cops—and then Mary had screamed for him to run, and somebody must have hit him. What on earth could they want him for? The only possible thing he could think of were his discussions with Matt O’Farrell and Brenden Merci about forming a sort of Catholic underground if persecution came, and how the heck they could know about that was beyond him. The voices were growing a little clearer now, queer rough hissing voices, almost sounding '' scorched'', some way above him. He did not open his eyes yet. Better to let them think he was still out. “…you may have thought. What you did is another matter. Why are they damaged?” a deep voice growled. “I did not dare to let them realize their peril.” another voice said, younger but no less harsh. “They are Catholics, my Father. The dragon-spell does not work on them, and they could look into our eyes with no effect. The girl was already aware. It was needful to act quickly. You know that dragon-powers cannot touch a faithful Catholic.” “Yes, the Church is still too strong for us.” the first voice rumbled. “But that will change. I am glad you brought her unspoiled; as many virgins as possible should be among the number of the seaters on the thrones.” “The two Catholic girls had charms of power on their necks. I was barely able to transport them here. I could not have spoiled them if I wished—a pity.” '' Dragons?? '' Ralph squeezed open his eyes a crack. He was lying on stone. Stone that gleamed like gold. It felt like gold, too, smooth and cold and metallic. A cave, glowing softly with queer iridescent hues in the curving walls, lay around him, and rocks gleaming with strange and vivid colors like enormous jewels were strewn about. A great coiled shape like a huge serpent with triangular stegosaur-like plates standing along the ridge, lay to the right, and following it up Ralph realized it was not a snake, but a gigantic tail, and the tail of a monster of prehistoric dimensions that squatted above them. Bulky yet sinuous, huge wings with great spined fingers folded along its’ back, its’ vast head was facing away from him, toward an even vaster shape that lay like a crimson cloud in the background of the scene, filling the cave. Dragons. He and Mary were the prisoners of dragons. Reaching into his shirt Ralph gripped the Miraculous Medal that he wore there. The pain in his head was gone at once. He knew, somehow, exactly what to do. Lunging to his feet with a roar, he shouted out the name of Jesus as he charged toward the nearby dragon, Medal held like a sword in his clenched fist. The dragons swung their heads. Ralph dove, sliding on the gold floor, aiming for the soft belly of the dragon in front of him. '' “You fool!”'' roared the Father of Dragons. “Don’t rear! Squat! Flat on the floor!” The younger dragon was too late. He had reared up to spit fire at Ralph, but Ralph was already under him, and with a shout he clapped the Miraculous Medal full against the squishy damp belly of the dragon’s chest. There was a blast of blue thunder. The gold walls were suddenly splattered with dark blue-black dragons’ blood. Shards and shreds of dragon-meat slid sickeningly down the walls. Scales fell clattering like glass from the heights of the unseen roof. But all the dragon-guts had blown away from Ralph, so he was unharmed. “Clever, young Catholic.” said the Father of Dragons. “But can your amulet protect you from water? Oh, yes, of course, I forgot, it’s not an amulet, huh? It’s a sacramental. Such a powerless thing when it comes to really practical matters.” Too late Ralph saw this dragon had more than one head. While the first head spoke, the second spewed water. A river overwhelmed Ralph, carried him away, and suddenly he found himself sitting on a seat of stone, high above the floor, staring into a column of churning uprushing white light. The floor was not gold. It was black glass. “Do you not know that no dragon really dies?” the voice of the Father of Dragons mocked. “You can always get them back. But you men, when you die, you die forever. There is no resurrection, there is no afterliving. My Master will consume you, and you will churn forever in his belly.” Then the mind of Ralph swooned, and dreams of madness took him. Lara watched Forest go into the library, and then suddenly, as he reached the doors, she couldn’t see him. Not even the Children of the Road could see him now, when he wanted to be unseen; save only Ronnie Wendy. Invisibly he passed the front desk. Nerissa was talking with a stout oldish woman with dull grey-orange hair: the Witch of Winchester herself. Mrs. Linda the director was walking up the hall, watching, watching, as she always did watch. She passed him by. The Witch of Winchester lifted her head suspiciously as he slipped by her, but her eyes glanced over him and saw him not. He took the atlas of topographic maps from the table and walked back out the door. “I didn’t know you could borrow that.” said Lara. “A library haunted by witches has no right to forbid me.” said Forest. He opened to Map 19. The Winsted quadrangle took up two facing pages, black and white. “Here’s Meadow St.” said Forest. “We were looking up it when Arheled showed me the two hills.” “There’s the Cobble…and that dark area must be the Grapevine Rock…” “Here.” pointed Forest. “Between Second Cobble and this other hill. Indian Meadow.” “Those are the swamp symbols. Great. We’ve got to go mucking around in a swamp now.” “It looks like the quickest way to get there,” said Forest, “is up the Cobble Hill and along the brook. You should park here.” Lara did so with a sigh. Forest slipped inside to return the atlas and they walked up Main Street, past Old Baptist and Flatiron Park, to where the bridge over Indian Meadow Brook bordered the patch of woods that led into the steep flanks of the Cobble. They ducked under the maple branches. The leaves made a roof of shade,, so that it felt more closed-in than it had that spring. The constant rains had left the low ground boggy, until they crossed the stone wall and climbed slantwise up the hill. The hospital showed above them on the right, through the trees. It felt cool and strong out, though the sun was warm and nearly hot. Breezes rustled the leaves. Forest led Lara up faint deer paths in the steep hill. At one point clustering spongelike coral mushrooms had formed a wide patch, their close-set, blunt, branched spikes a soft creamy white. Forest stopped to pick them until one pocket of his backpack was full. “Are those safe to eat?” said Lara. “Sure.” said Forest. “They taste like vegetable spaghetti. Sometimes even spicy.” They crossed a breach in a stone wall running straight uphill and entered less steep, more open maple and birch forest. Many leaves had already fallen, giving the remaining green ones a scanty-thin appearance. To the right was the open, thorn-choked field on the saddle of the Cobble, edged by ancient maples and a stone wall. Barberry began to fill the wood, but a path remained clear where a farm road had once been, and so they crossed to the heavier, darker hemlock woods under the small cliff and jumbled boulders of the Grapevine Rock, second of the three summits of Cobble Hill. Up and over the tumbled skirts and long slopes of the back of Second Cabble they climbed. This hill was longer and slower than the narrow steep point that was The Cobble; beech-grown slopes, a deep green dawning into the first hints of autumn gold, laden with logs and fern and rocks, fell ever more steeply on the left to the sound of running water. Loggers had been here within the last ten years, as the open forest and thorny underbrush of raspberry testified. At length they began descending, climbing over old ruts deepened into streamlets and plowing through masses of fern. They came to the bottom and found an old logging road going up the valley, while on the left, around a small hillock dark with featherlock pines, the brook splashed over many stones. The road was swampy at first, and rills of water seeped through the nets of stickygrass and jewelweed while Forest and Lara picked their way along the side. Then the valley rose a little and the ground dried. On their left and near at hand the brook chattered below the road. The forest was of old hemlock now, thick and green above but sad and brown below, layered with dull horizontal bands of dark green foliage. A steep hillside, brown and twiggy, rose on the right, and the logging rd curved uphill, bending back on itself as it headed up toward Losaw Rd. Leaving it they headed on upstream. The valley became narrower. Another logging road was visible on the far shore, while brush and young linden made going hard. They crossed easily on the small round stones sticking out of the shallow dark water, which foamed at every cataract and left streams of bubbles. The bed was about ten feet wide. On the far side the woods were sunny, logged hillsides deep in raspberry and fern rising up to a distant crest. Then they reached a ford. A deep-cloven old road, the uphill side held back by rough masonry, came down the hill toward them, and, meeting their road, turned and crossed the stream at a rocky ford. On the far side it bent back, following the stream toward its’ source. Two huge dented pipes of corrugated iron had once carried the stream under the road, but now brown with rust they stood isolated downstream, where some old flood had shoved them when it took the soil from around them. “We follow that road.” said Forest, pointing across the stream. “But both seem to follow the stream.” said Lara. “That one leads to Arheled.” he stated. They scrambled and jumped across, using the iron pipes, Lara grumbling that they should have stayed on that side coming up. They walked up the other road in silence. Small raspberry mingled with ashy goldenrod going to seed, and asters blooming white and faint purple, petals like long rice grains. It had an open, sunny, cheerful sort of feel, with the sun coming from above and the greeny-yellow wall of young trees to either hand. Then the forest closed in and the feeling was left behind. Hemlocks of middle size grew along the road’s borders, and whether it was chance or some trick of perspective, where the road went straight for a way the hemlocks seemed like columns lining some wild woodland hall. “This is the avenue.” said Forest. “They’re not planted regular.” Lara objected as they walked further. As they did so the hemlocks straggled and the illusion of regularity vanished, but when they looked back they saw one last glimpse of the pillared hall behind them. “This is the approach to Arheled.” he answered. They left the strange avenue behind. The road curved right and became open, cresting a low hump of land. Open space appeared behind the trees some way ahead. The road bent right, leaving the brook, and became lined with creeping raspberry as it entered a loose ring of pole-like scanty white pines. They hardly gave it a glance; both were eager to reach the open area. Leaving the road they wormed their way through old dense hemlocks. To the left the brook was open and grass grew in tufts on the bank. They crossed a marshy gully on a huge soft brown old log, a baby hemlock growing out of one end. Stooping under the low branches of a squat old hemlock, they pushed aside limbs to find themselves on the edge of Indian Meadow. A wide flat lay before them, oblong and nearly a mile from end to end, dying away into scrub maple. It was open like a meadow, but marshy, and short cattail reeds with drooping blades now bleached browny-pale served it for grass. A few dead trees reached up like ancient claws fingers, a sad greyish-white like old bone. Higher mounds were marked by browny-grey ashes of burnt-old goldenrod, though asters of white and deeper purple relieved the yellow-brown and old green. A creek seeped through the middle of this flat, marked by a line of reeds that had not yet faded brown, dull green amid the browny-yellow. A steep stony hill rose abruptly from the left shore, while on the right the long slopes of Second Cobble were hidden by a tall border of spiky white pine, the dark gloss of dense laurel underneath. The far end was closed by a high mound dark with pines, and further hills formed the head of a deep bowl valley emptying into the Meadow. A few faint reds and oranges added some color to the sad crusty yellow-brown-green of the trees. The sky, huge overhead, was filled with great racing tattered fair-weather clouds, and blue islands of sky yawned between them, a deep vivid blue at the zenith and a paler and even lovelier blue lower down. Racing shadows made the hills alternately brilliant and dark. They stood on a bank of earth, running along the serrated edge of a hump of higher ground that held in the meadow. Thorns grew on it. “Well, this is Indian Meadow sure enough.” said Lara. “What do we do now, search the whole valley for a house?” “We passed it.” said Forest. “What do you mean, we passed it?! I didn’t see a thing!” “It’s—back there.” '' Hidden. Hidden somewhere close. '' “If you say so.” said Lara doubtfully. “It has to be between these two hills, after all.” They passed back under the hemlock and crossed the stream a little ways below the meadow; at first it flowed in a deepish channel with a stony bottom. They walked slowly, both peering about; Lara for a cunningly blended dwelling, Forest for something he could not describe. “We have to cross that.” he said suddenly, pointing downstream. Woods closed them in, but they could see the stream flowed in a shallow valley below the dim avenue. The ring of pines showed through the trees. Crossing the stony creek was a bridge of poles and sawn logs lashed together; some forgotten Boy Scout project, perhaps, from years back, for it was decrepit, and though none of the logs had decayed, the four posts supporting it below had been knocked askew by floods, and the high teepee arch of joined poles above it was sagging, so that the ladder-like walkway listed to the left and shook badly. The ropes had bleached gray at the joints. “That’s going to fall over.” said Lara. Forest scrambled up onto it. It swayed perilously but did not collapse. “It’ll hold.” he said. “Well, you can fall in if you want, but I’m going over like a normal person.” Lara retorted. “If you want to see Arheled you will follow my lead.” said Forest. “And why should I go….” A green light glowed in his eyes. “You cannot find the house unless you cross this bridge.” he said sternly. Lara eyed him strangely. But she climbed onto the bridge, clinging to the tottering supports, and they worked their way across and jumped down. “Well, nothing looks different to me, is something wrong with my eyes?” quipped Lara sarcastically. Forest made no answer, scrambling up to the road instead, and Lara gave an exasperated sigh and followed him. When they reached the road, they stopped where they stood, eyes widening. For there was no doubt at all that something had indeed changed. The old logging road that had gone through the little clearing in the circle of pines, was now an ancient highway, flat paving stones buried in moss and ages of leaves. The earth swallowed it to their left; to their right it ran on straight between the avenues of trees; but ahead, where the brushy clearing and tall open pines had been, a circle of white pines now surrounded an enclosed ring of ground. Huge now they were, their great short limbs like outthrust hands, shading the ground. Creeping raspberry and ground elder paved the forest floor, and the close green foliage of partridgeberry and the purplish clusters of wintergreen speckled it with red berries. And amid the clearing was a cabin of grey wood. So old and earthy a dwelling Lara had never seen, save in ruins nigh reclaimed by the earth. Moss hung in green beards and furred the planks like bark, and the shingled roof bore such a load of deep moss and ferns it was a marvel it was at all intact. Windows were set in the walls, the glass crusted with mold and crawling skin of moss, and an ancient door of some tarnished metal stood half open. Wrought hinges of rusted silver curled in archaic forms, and letters were graven into the metal in some forgotten alphabet of power. A plank porch ran around one side. And sitting upon it was a figure as still as a graven king. They drew nearer, carefully, warily. Leaves had drifted into the door and a queer reek of molded wood and mildewed clothing came from within. Mildew grew upon the figure’s clothes, and even on his hair and skin, so long had he sat there. When they entered the ring of trees, the figure lifted his head with a creaking of bones and spoke. “So, Star of the Road, you have sought the house of Arheled and found it at the last. I am here. What do you ask of me?” Lara and Forest found themselves unable to say a word. Arheled straightened his stiff limbs, rising to his feet, bones crackling and crunching. He was incredibly tall. His beard buried his face, save for his somber ancient eyes. “You have been calling to me by day and by night, Lara Midwinter, and now you have nothing to say?” “I brought her, Arheled.” said Forest. “And it was for that very reason that I told you how to find me. Speak your sorrow, Lara Midwinter.” “Where is my sister Lilac?” Lara said harshly. “Lilac grows from the earth, and watches the gardens, but is itself vulnerable even as it protects. Earth takes it, black and darkless in the sweet and secret rock. The rock with eyes watches them. The living pillar answers the rock. There is the Lilac held.” “But…” stammered Lara. “She is human, and yet means more than herself.” said Arheled. “Lilac is she, and as such was she seized: one of six who can truly see. The Lilac, the witch, the seer and the secular, and the two fiery Catholics, the Red and the Rogers. The seventh is a Star. They wanted six of the Road, but they are cowards and so when the Children proved too strong they went after easier prey.” “Don’t you know where she is?” said Lara. “She is not upon the surface of the Earth, nor in any place the Road can see.” answered Arheled. “There is a shadow underneath the world. There is a darkness at the Earthheart that clouds my eyes: but I know where the Seven Thrones stand, and I know that they must bring her there on the Samhain Night, wherever they are holding her now; and they know that I know. We cannot find her until then, Lara.” “You mean…we have to leave her? With them?” “She wears the protection of the Church.” said Arheled. “The sacramental are upon her. They cannot violate her, nor do her any harm; nor touch her save with great pain. But on that night they will not need to touch her.” “We have to get her!” Lara said fiercely. “The Road does not walk under the earth.” Arheled replied. “To send it there would be unwise. Travel cannot take you there. You will need to use another path.” “Show us.” said Forest. “And I at least will go with her.” Lara gave him a grateful look. Arheled turned his towering frame and stalked stiffly down from the ring of trees, onto the ancient road. He was no longer so tall. “Do you know why the Tower of the Tree was planted here, or why it is that I sit here in this old house until moss grows on my form? Do you know why the Five Churches form a ring in defence of this valley and no other? It is only in part because of the two valleys, of Naugatuck and Daslenga, which meet at Winsted. I will show you the reason why. I will raise the Gates of the North.” They followed him up the buried road and out onto the edge of Indian Meadow. It was held in, they saw now, by an earth rampart, either a small dike raised by the farmers of old or an ancient beaver dam so old it had decayed into soil, for it curved along the bays and coves of the low rise where a man-made berm could quite easily have cut across. To the left the stream flowed between rocks, notching the rise. It was grown with thin shrubs and raspberry. As Arheled strode out into the swampy meadow, a shuddering ran through the soft earth. It rose. Out of the rushes a causeway was coming, reeds and mud sliding off of it, until revealed there lay an ancient road. Arheled stalked up it, and the children walked behind him, shoes slipping in the slimy earth that still covered the unrotted stones. The creek rushed swiftly through the choking reeds of its’ channel on the left. Slowly they advanced farther and farther along Indian Meadow, until the barrier behind them was a small thing, a line dividing meadow from trees. They could see now that the meadow was at its’ narrowest where they had entered, at the south end, slowly broadening as it drew north, until the east shore ended in a corner of old pines and scrub maple and retreated inward in a great round bay, bending back in a tangle of dark hemlocks. An island marked by a great lone pine stood on the far corner of this bay, and beyond it the open marshes merged into a scrub maple swamp across the round head of the Meadow. Beaver dams there inundated large areas, crossing the swamp in straight lines. Where the long southern arm began, at the mouth of this wider head, the stone causeway stopped, in the middle of the swamp. Arheled turned his head to the left. Quite suddenly Lara and Forest were standing on soggy deep grass at the margin where the marsh met the steep rocky hill. Bushes grew on the fringe; thick laurel climbed the hill; in front of them, half sunk in the earth, was a skull of stone. Or so it looked at first glance. A rounded worn rock, battered maybe by forgotten waves in the days of some long-vanished lake, three feet wide and only a foot or so above ground, two deep oblong hollows like wide-set sallow eyes were eroded into its’ marshward face, so that it seemed like some stone head peering queerly above the swamp. There was a queer feel about it, as if it had once bee part of some nameless idol, a feel of old evil long past and powerless, but not safe either. Those eyes….watching… “Follow the direction in which it gazes.” said Arheled. The line of the hollow empty gaze bent a little diagonally, back south-eastwards by east. Suddenly they stood on the margin of the opposite shore, amid deep yellow grass and creeping raspberry, the densest tangle and greenest laurel jungle even Forest had ever seen lying before them. Then they were inside the laurel, in a gloomy glade like a circular tent, the laurel like a wall, kept back by the shade of the thick, sweeping limbs of a huge, short, ancient hemlock. “These are the two pillars of the secret way, the vanished gate that Morkû built to find the broken evil and the place of power.” said Arheled. “These are the lintels of the Gates of the North. It is this that Chaos will walk toward, and it is this that we must defend against him.” “Where do they lead?” Lara said in a small voice. Arheled bent on her a look so grim, and so sad, that when he spoke all further questions died within her. “Utumno.” he said. Without another word he strode back down the slimy causeway, and Lara and Forest, a little startled at the sudden change of scene, followed slowly. Neither felt any desire for further knowledge. Lara, who had never heard the name, felt a slight chill in her very heart. Forest, who knew the name, felt sick. “You will be battling for every mile as you go under the earth.” said Arheled. “Come here on Friday the 7th, for that is the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary; on that day you will begin your descent. Four thousand miles you must travel to the Earth’s core. It will take you all month to descend: I will pack you food that will never run out, and I will set tokens upon you that will cleanse all airs you breathe and cool all heats you pass through.” “A whole month?” said Lara. “Mom’ll die of worry.” said Forest. Arheled gave a sad, queer smile. “The families of the Children of the Road cannot be allowed to become hostages against you. I will cast the Road upon them, to lie in slumber until you return out of the earth.” “You’re not coming with us, Arheled?” quavered Lara. The grim eyes of Arheled stared into hers. Ancient beyond the reckoning of men, queer and terrible, kind but not human, she felt a sudden bottomless fear of this alien being, this entity that was nothing at all like her. “Do not question what you cannot comprehend, Starmaiden.” he said. “I am not answerable to you, or to any son of man. Rest assured that I am on your side. But doubt me not.” As suddenly as that they stood in the library parking lot, beside Lara’s car. Ronnie heard a little mouse. The sound made him grind his teeth. The only thing more annoying than the sound of skittering behind the plasterboard where he couldn’t reach, was a mosquito droning around inside his bedroom. No sleep tonight…unless he turned on his prepaid cell phone for flashlight and crawled into the attic and re-baited the old mousetraps, and then subliminally willed the mice into springing them. As he was doing this, the screen of his phone went from blue to red and white letters told him he had a new voice mail. Then the screen went off after a minute and he had to press one of the buttons to light it up. Of course, being totally ignorant of how to navigate a cell phone, this button turned on the camera and he accidentally took a picture of his knee. When he finally was able to listen to the message, he was surprised to hear Lara’s voice. It sounded odd on the phone, but nobody else had that soft swift clearness of tone. “Hi Ronnie, it’s Lara. Call me as soon as you get this—urgent.” Frowning Ronnie glanced at the clock. Good, it was only 9:00, not too late. He called the number. Lara answered on the second ring. “Hey Lara, it’s Ronnie.” “Did you get my message?” she said crisply. “I did.” “Well, I have some news. I don’t want to waste your minutes, but Forest took me to the house of Arheled. Up by Indian Meadow.” “Indian Meadow.” mused Ronnie. “Right below Losaw Rd…where the first appearance of the Wild Man is recorded. No wonder.” “Yes, well, Arheled showed us why Winsted is so important. It is the opening of the Gates of the North. We must go to Arheled tomorrow, Oct. 7th. All of us. Pack for a trip.” “Call Travel.” said Ronnie. Oct. 7th dawned cold at first—the past two mornings there had been frosts—but grew quickly warmer, although still crisp and cool. Actual color was appearing in the trees as the swamp maples darkened a deep orange-yellow and a few scarlet reds; on the hills the pines stood out a deep dark green amid seas of orange-yellow and oak-green. Travel appeared at Ronnie’s house—inside the house, while he was eating breakfast, and full of blushes and giggles excused herself. “I’m sorry! I meant to land outside! I forgot to think of your front door and I just said ‘Ronnie’!” “One of these days you’ll land in somebody’s bathroom.” he said dryly. “You’ll have to wait a sec while I get ready. Should I bring anything?” “I don’t know; Forest seems to think we’re going somewhere, so pack for a hike. Him and Bell are eating breakfast, but Lara’s dressed and waiting. Brooke is in the shower. I’ll take everybody to my yard first. Be back in a little!” A blue light grew around her and she sort of imploded into it, and was gone. “She’s good.” remarked Ronnie to the air. He was ready when she reappeared, having taken a hat, a coat with a scarf sewn onto it, and both a sweater and a short-sleeve shirt, as well as a water bottle and the omnipresent backpack. The blue light took him, and the strange shapes and phantoms swirled around him, and then they appeared beside the pond at the Lane house. The swamp maples were turning deep red and rumpled orange-red, and the winterberry belt glowed deep green and red with the abundant berries. “The Lane house is well-protected this year.” said Ronnie. Lara, looking harassed and nervous, merely nodded. Bell was in jeans and a blue sweater. Forest wore brown corduroy pants and a grey shirt with a dull green jacket, and seemed more insignificant and hard-to-see than ever. Brooke, her hair dark wet and brushed, was still pulling on her own black turtleneck sweater. Her stonewashed jeans were tight-fitting and glowed blue amid the soft dewy woods. Travel’s dark hair looked unkempt but pretty. “Everyone ready?” said Travel. “No.” said Forest. Everyone turned and looked at him. “It.” His mouth worked a little but nothing came out. “It what?” Bell prodded, an amused but oddly tender smile on her face. “It itted?” “Uh.” “He has this bad habit of completing his sentences in his head.” Bell explained lightly. “Sometimes I have to bop him until he says it.” “Hey!” growled Forest. “I was!” “There he goes again.” “It’s all right.” said Ronnie. “He says the house is hidden, and you won’t be able to find it.” Now everyone turned to look at Ronnie. “Did you just read his mind?” demanded Lara. Ronnie gave a terse nod. “My power is to reveal.” he said. “Thoughts seem to be falling under that heading. When I meet your eyes, I can hear what you say before you say it. And yes, Lara, I smell moldy.” “I’m gonna throw something at him.” muttered Lara. “Not a snowball down my neck, please.” Lara choked. “You weren’t joking.” Ronnie nodded. “Tell us, Forest,” he said, “how is the house of Arheled hidden? And how do we reach it?” “With this.” said Forest, reaching into his pocket. He held in his hand a small black paintbrush. Moving almost too fast to see, the boy’s hands flashed about through the air before him; and where his brush passed, light lay upon the air, until in half a minute a picture stood before them like a window. Indistinct of detail but clear of image like an Impressionist painting, the dark ancient pines and moldy ancient cabin stood before them. And Ronnie knew he had seen that house before. “Take us to that, Travel.” he said. The painting grew solid and expanded into reality before them. A different smell met them, damp and muddy and forest-leaf-mouldy as well, and a queer sour odor of must and rot from the cabin. Arheled stood like a graven statue before the tarnished door; Ronnie’s sharp eyes noticed the frost on his coat, and also that some of the mysterious letters on the door were in Elven-script, but others were utterly unknown. “Well done.” Arheled said to them. He stirred and frost fell in silver dust from his coat. “Are you ready?” “Ready for what, sir?” said Ronnie. “To enter the Gates of the North.” Lara gasped slightly. Forest’s eyes widened. But Ronnie only said, “Sir, I do not know these gates.” Arheld lifted one hand and pointed. The hemlock drew back with an apologetic sweeping of branches, and Indian Meadow lay before them, silver and brown with the frost. A faint layered mist hung over the ground at the far end like a white band. Though the far hills were bright with gold from the early sun, the Meadow and the pines to the right were still in shade. Ground and marsh trembled underfoot. Reed split and mud slumped to left and right of a line sundering the marsh, and up from the swampy earth the causeway rose, a stone road from forgotten times extending out to the middle of the marsh. Arheled walked out upon the slimy road, and the Children of the Road followed him in silence. “Before the Men of the Sea returned into these lands and sailed up the rivers, the Morkû came, and they felt the power in this land, and they used the Road itself and mingled it with forgotten magic and their own ancient power, and they drove a hole through Reality itself and the very fabric of Creation, seeking to find the place long broken and the doors of darkness. And they found it.” “What did they find?” said Ronnie Wendy. “They found the Gates of Hell.” answered Arheled. “They found Utumno.” “That place was broken!” Ronnie whispered. “Destroyed! It is gone!” “It was broken, but not unmade.” said Arheled. “The Valar thought they had rendered it safe, and in the ancient wars of the Powers those lands were smashed under the Sea, and the World was Bent, and they forgot it, deeming it consumed by the changes of time. But in the buried waters, under the sea of ice at the roof of the earth, the forgotten ruins, the unshattered pits, still there lie, and still there wait: the entrance of the underworld, the gateways of desolation, the place of horror. I do not walk there. The Road cannot break them, for to do so would be to break in sunder Hell itself. But it can conceal them. Mortals cannot stumble there, nor scientists uncover their secrets of peril. So I deemed it hid, until using my own Road the Morkû breached my secrets and penetrated to the place I had concealed. Only the Gates of the North go there now.” “Couldn’t you break the Gates?” “Weren’t you listening?” said Arheled. “They were made in the power of the Road, and the Road cannot break itself. So I made the Tower of the Tree to guard it, and when the Tower fell, the Road wove into being the Wild Man of Winsted, and we drove away the magicians, nor did they find their Gate again.” They reached the end of the causeway. “I will not send you through the mouths of Hell. You will walk by other paths underneath the earth. They have found other victims to fill the Seven Thrones. They will not bring them there until Samhain Night itself, not all of them; you must be there on that night, and you must free them, for if you do not then they will be consumed and Chaos will rise incarnate on the earth.” “You aren’t coming.” stated Ronnie. Arheled slowly inclined his head. “Why are you not coming?” “Do you challenge me, Hill of the Road?” said Arheled softly. “Yes, I challenge you.” Ronnie answered. “We do not have the strength to fight the Foes all at once. I challenge you to tell us why you send us to our deaths.” “Because I cannot come.” Arheled said quietly. “But you bear within you both the Road and the Church—aye, even you Protestants, for you share Baptism and honor Christ, and in this peril that is enough—and so you are able to descend where the Great cannot go. My reasons are my own. My motives are my own. Suffice it to say that I send you, and that is enough.” “Do we go, then, unarmed?” said Ronnie. “No one goes unarmed from the house of Arheled.” he answered. “Look upon your hands. Do you see those stains that wind up from your wrists? They are not cute little curly dragon tattoos. They are weapons of the Stars. In your packs are tin pails, which you will find full at mealtimes, and water bottles that never run dry. Did you notice that you all wear cloaks, that have the virtue of keeping air around you though you be cast into a void, though the air you walk through be only poison? Blades cannot enter their fabric, and they are good as armour. Look upon your feet: your shoes will keep you from all heat, even lava; nor will they break or burn, and they send endurance to the body. Now I will call awake the Gates.” He held out both arms like a cross. Beams of white-blue light rayed out from them. Far away on the left, the eyes of the stone head sunk in the earth glowed in answer. Far away on the right, the short thick hemlock burst into light. Up out of the earth, they could see as if they were close, a stone figure was rising, mud and wet earth falling from it, the stone head riding triumphant on its’ shoulders. It had an evil look. There was laughter in the wide eroded eyes. The figure rose, and after it rose a stone pedestal, square and stained with uncounted ages of water, and mud and slime; and then with a tremendous boom like an ancient bar clicking into place, it stopped, the head now on a level with the broken top of the glowing hemlock. A ray of red light sprang from statue to tree, and with a sizzling hiss sent a vertical beam onto the stone road, and that beam widened into a door of red light. '' “Down.”'' the voice of Arheled rang from hill to hill. ''“Send them whom I consign to thee upon the Way of the Buried City, as deep as thou canst reach.” '' The gateway sizzled again. Slowly it tilted until it was angled like a cellar doorway, and there showed in the red light a stairway of stone. “Go forth, my children, in the name of the Road.” said Arheled. A chill breeze stirred their cloaks as they stepped out of the living world and onto the gleaming stairs. Behind them like a window they saw the autumn sky, the cool blue-white of morning, and the glowing form of Arheled bright against it; and then the window closed, and the red light was gone, and they stood upon the stair into the center of the earth. Back to Arheled